Oryx and Crake: A Novel (Atwood, Margaret Eleanor)

by Margaret Atwood

Hardcover, 2003

Status

Available

Publication

Nan A. Talese (2003), Edition: First Edition, 383 pages

Description

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey--with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake--through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

Media reviews

Oryx and Crake is a piece of dystopian fiction written from the point of Snowman (known as Jimmy in his former life) – the last human left on Earth. At least, he believes he’s the last human left on Earth until the end of the book. I found the parts of the book describing Snowman’s journey
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to Paradice (the dome in the compound where Crake did his work) to be a lot less interesting than his recollections of his previous life as Jimmy. I loved reading about how Jimmy and Crake met, the little signs that Crake gave off as to what he might be planning and the direction his thoughts might take in the future (though Jimmy didn’t recognize these until it was too late), etc. Crake is really the star of the show in this book in my mind – Jimmy simply acts as a vessel for us to learn about a character who is dead and who therefore cannot teach us about himself. Snowman’s adventures in real time seem almost pointless to me. Why not dedicate the whole book to Jimmy’s friendship with Crake, with just a bit of general explanation as to what’s going on now? I think the present would have been much more interesting if the Crakers were explored more than Jimmy’s struggle to survive and come to grips with what Crake had done. On the whole, however, I thought it was a great book.
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10 more
Set sometime in the future, this post-apocalyptic novel takes scientific research in the hands of madmen to its logical and frightening conclusion. Inspiring readers to pay more attention to the world around them, Atwood offers cautionary notes about the environment, bioengineering, the sacrifice
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of civil liberties, and the possible loss of those human values which make life more than just a physical experience. As the novel opens, some catastrophe has occurred, effectively wiping out human life. Only one lonely survivor and a handful of genetically altered humanoids remain, and they are slowly starving as they try to adjust to their changed circumstances.
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In Margaret Atwood's first attempt at writing a novel, the main character was an ant swept downriver on a raft. She abandoned that book after the opening scene and became caught up in other activities, which she has described as ''sissy stuff like knitting and dresses and stuffed bunnies.'' That
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certainly does not sound like Ms. Atwood, who is known for the boldness of her fiction. Of course she was only 7 at the time.
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Margaret Atwood has always taken a jaundiced view of human nature. Back when her mordant observations about marriage and other relations between the sexes had her marked down as a feminist, she took pains to fire off several novels in a row featuring weak, manipulative, dishonest and outright bad
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women, partly to prove that her skepticism was distributed fairly. She has always been of the opinion that people are a mixed bag of the occasionally decent and the frequently mendacious and that there's not much anyone can do to change that fact.
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Genetic tinkering. Rampant profiteering. A deadly virus that sweeps the globe. Are these last Tuesday's headlines or our future?

In Margaret Atwood's novel Oryx and Crake, the answer is both. For Atwood, our future is the catastrophic sum of our oversights. It's a depressing view, saved only by
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Atwood's biting, black humor and absorbing storytelling.
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he novelist Margaret Atwood has wandered off from us before: once, in 1986, to the mid-twenty-first century, for a feminist dystopia, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” in which women are enslaved according to their reproductive usefulness; another time, in 1996, to the nineteenth century, to make
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thrifty use of her graduate work at Radcliffe in the faux-Victorian novel “Alias Grace.” These were forays and raids. In her chronicling of contemporary sexual manners and politics, Atwood has always been interested in pilfering popular forms—comic books, gothic tales, detective novels, science fiction—in order to make them do her more literary bidding. Her previous novel, “The Blind Assassin,” is the best example of the kind of narrative pastiche at which she excels.
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I AM going to stick my neck out and just say it: science fiction will never be Literature with a capital ''L,'' and this is because it inevitably proceeds from premise rather than character. It sacrifices moral and psychological nuance in favor of more conceptual matters, and elevates scenario over
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sensibility. Some will ask, of course, whether there still is such a thing as ''Literature with a capital 'L.' '' I proceed on the faith that there is. Are there exceptions to my categorical pronouncement? Probably, but I don't think enough of them to overturn it.
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With her latest novel, ''Oryx and Crake,'' Margaret Atwood takes us back to the future, much the way she did in her 1986 novel ''The Handmaid's Tale.'' Once again she conjures up a dystopia, where trends that started way back in the 20th century have metastasized into deeply sinister phenomena.
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Once again she has tried to write a cautionary tale about the hypothetical consequences of our current appetites and obsessions. And once again she has produced a lumpy hodge-podge of a book: a novel that's didactic, at times intriguing but in the end thoroughly unpersuasive.
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The end of the world would be bad, of course, but books about it are a disaster. Once in a while an author carries off the Apocalypse with some pizazz - St. John comes to mind - but even the best writers have trouble with it. Three years ago, T.C. Boyle brought things to a dismal close in "Friend
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of the Earth." And now Booker Prize-winner Margaret Atwood is thundering away in "Oryx and Crake."
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Arguably the shortest of all short stories, the late science-fiction writer Fredric Brown's "Knock" reads, in its entirety: "The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door." Or, to put it another way, "One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised
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with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand." Whether in Brown's distilled version or in Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," this scene always tells the same story: A man thinks himself alone, then discovers otherwise.
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Environmental unconcern, genetic engineering, and bioterrorism have created the hollowed-out, haunted future world of Atwood’s ingenious and disturbing 11th novel, bearing several resemblances to The Handmaid’s Tale

User reviews

LibraryThing member TadAD
This is what apocalyptic science fiction should be like. I understand that she tends to disdain her work being placed in that genre but, well, that's what this book is.

If you look at some of the mainstays of the category—Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon, Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, Robert
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Merle's Malevil, Stephen King's The Stand, et al.—they share the structure that the epidemic/nuclear war/disaster of choice strikes and the story focuses on the survivors coping with the aftermath. I don't want to take anything away from those works (I enjoyed each of them) but, in a sense, they share as much with the adventure story genus as they do with speculative fiction.

Atwood has given us something different. Though she does show us a bit of what the aftermath looks like, it's a minor part of the book...a skeleton upon which to hang the real story: the cautionary tale of why the disaster happened in the first place. (I'm not a fan of spoilers in reviews, so I'll just leave it that the answer to "why?" might surprise you.) In a way, by exploiting that strength of science fiction that allows the author to extrapolate current social forces, Atwood bridges the gap that exists between non-fiction books that caution about what we are already doing and other post-apocalyptic works that posit something went wrong.

Having taken this road, she's done an excellent job, particularly in two areas. The first is the main character of Snowman/Jimmy. He's humorous and charming, even when he's being bad, and it's easy to connect with him. Atwood has made him a product of his particular culture, yet placed him just enough outside of it to give him some perspective for commentary. For me, he was what made the story line work.

The second is her portrayal of society. She managed to capture so many trends (the fetish of youth, a dumbing down of expectation and a rising hunger for "bread and circuses", a growing disparity between the haves and have nots) and weave them together into a picture that passed the test of feeling real whether one thinks we'll actually go that route or not.

I'm ambivalent about the fact that there is a semi-sequel. You will either love or hate the ending of Oryx and Crake—I loved it and might like to leave it there.
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LibraryThing member littlebookworm
Humanity has been devastated by a virus and Snowman, formerly known as Jimmy, is perhaps the only human to have survived, for all he knows. With him are his friend Crake’s perfect creations, people genetically modified to become more perfect than ordinary human beings. They have better ways of
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sustaining themselves, go into heat like animals to avoid difficult romantic situations, and can even purr to heal injuries. Snowman, however, is having a much more difficult time surviving, and juxtaposes his struggle to find more food with his personal history, his love affair with Oryx, and how he found himself to be alone.

This is only my second Margaret Atwood novel, and after loving The Handmaid’s Tale, I’m really wondering why it took me so long to read another. I adore dystopias and Atwood has created another intriguing world here, if not quite as plausible. When Jimmy was a child, the Corporations ruled supreme, essentially acting as one big government. The world outside of the Corporations was unimportant, the people only used as test subjects and cash cows as medicines were infused with illnesses to keep the market booming. If any worker betrayed insider secrets, they were killed. This was the world of Jimmy’s childhood, and while he wasn’t brilliant enough for a high position, his best friend Glenn, later known as Crake, certainly was. It is Crake who sets out to change everything and puts in motion the events that destroy the world as everyone knows it.

While I couldn’t say I actually liked any of the characters, which was the book’s weakest point, it was hard for me to tear myself away from this book. I was fascinated by the development of the plot; we know early on that the world has changed drastically, but finding out just how and why was riveting. I didn’t like Jimmy/Snowman all that much, due to his escapades with women and his irritating obsession with Oryx, but I loved the curiosities of his world. His struggle to find more food allows us to relate to him even as we dislike him, but it also serves the purpose of guiding us through more of the world.

For me, the best part was the Crakers, the genetically altered beings that Crake created. What I liked about them was that even though they were modified to escape supposed human foibles, they still exhibited that humanity. This was mainly through their acceptance of a god-like story featuring, as expected, Oryx and Crake. Even though they’re reportedly hard-wired to miss out on all mistakes, they are still people and it’s almost as though we can see their mythology evolving. Snowman doesn’t know how else to explain it to them and they latch on remarkably easily. Fascinating stuff, and that really cemented the entire book for me.

Atwood is a remarkable author. Oryx and Crake has convinced me that I really need to get reading more of her work. I certainly recommend this, especially to those who enjoy dystopias and science fiction.
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LibraryThing member stephmo
On the upside, Campbell Scott has been a pleasure to listen to while listening the unabridged audio for Oryx and Crake. If anyone can make things like pigoons, rackhunks, chickieknobs and Extinctathon sound legitimate, he can. Ms. Atwood's story, on the other hand, suffers for this need to compress
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nearly every modern bioengineering marvel in her future world into a designer dog breed name. Labradoodle issue aside, Oryx and Crake is one of those stories that is compelling enough to read and enjoy, but will never feel like one of the greatest books you've ever read. For every good moment in the book, there are that many more moments of smug cleverness weighing it down. Look, everyone works and lives in the corporation from birth to death - even schools bid on them! or The one playing God will be obsessed with genetically engineering God out of the equation! or Bioengineering will have freakish results! There comes a point where there's simply too much telling and not enough showing in the story when it comes to what the corporations control and what got Crake into his position. While the trip is interesting, one cannot help but wonder if a different path would have taken the journey into something a little less pedestrian. Pedestrian is plenty fine for the morning commute, but this story was definitely aiming higher than that.
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LibraryThing member drachenbraut23
“The male frog in mating season," said Crake, "makes as much noise as it can. The females are attracted to the male frog with the biggest, deepest voice because it suggests a more powerful frog, one with superior genes. Small male frogs—it's been documented—discover if they position
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themselves in empty drainpipes, the pipe acts as a voice amplifier and the small frog appears much larger than it really is."
So?"
So that's what art is for the artist, an empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.”

“Immortality,' said Crake, ' is a concept. If you take 'mortality' as being, not death, but the foreknowledge of it and the fear of it, then 'immortality' is the absence of such fear. Babies are immortal. Edit out the fear, and you'll be...”

“Jimmy, look at it realistically. You can't couple a minimum access to food with an expanding population indefinitely. Homo sapiens doesn't seem to be able to cut himself off at the supply end. He's one of the few species that doesn't limit reproduction in the face of dwindling resources. In other words - and up to a point, of course - the less we eat, the more we fuck."

"How to do you account for that?" said Jimmy

"Imagination," said Crake. "Men can imagine their own deaths...human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else...and live on forever.”


Woah, this was such a terrific read, a powerful rollercoaster ride, scary, dark, but also funny and ironic. It is a book filled with coarse language but sucks you in anyway. The questions raised in this story, nothing new there, but presented in a truly compelling way. Where should we draw the line in regards to gen technological manipulations of humans, animals and nature? Do we deserve to live, with all the power we have to destroy our planet and ourselves? What are the repercussions of what we are creating in regards to our children?

Somewhere, not too far in the future we meet Snowman, who appears to be the only human survivor of a global biological and ecological disaster. Trying to survive in this new situation with genetically altered animals, plants and a new type of hybrid people – not quite human, but not animal either – he slowly faces starvation. Whilst Snowman forages for supplies his story unfolds and we meet the boy and then the man Snowman has been before the catastrophe hit. We hear the story of the boy Jimmy, who grows into a relatively naive and shallow young man and together we hurtle towards the end of the world. We meet Crake his childhood friend, a genius and mad scientist, and Oryx, whom they both loved.

What I loved about the story was Atwood’s incredible imagination. She presents us with pigoons, unique modified pigs used for organ harvesting, rakunks, wolvogs, well then we get ChickyNobbs, happycuppa and the likes, as hardly anything natural is available anymore. Aside from internet porn, games and executions she also presents us with an assisted suicide site called nitee-nite.com, if that’s nothing? This was such a marvelous read, and I am certainly looking forward to the sequel.
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LibraryThing member eleanor_eader
How this post-apocalyptic treasure stayed off my shelf for so long I don’t know… it’s a genre I enjoy greatly, an author I respect, and it’s been recommended to me at least half a dozen times. And yet I picked it up thinking… Oh, okay. Time to read this, I guess. HAH. I just spent two
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days alternately moved, fascinated, horrified and wearing a wryly cynical smile (that made my cheeks cramp after a while). Oryx and Crake is a tale of the human condition and what happens when someone finds a cure for it.

Two of the principal characters, those named in the title, are gone. The people they’ve left behind are new… plant eaters, naked and colourful, placid and obedient to the wishes of the beneficent Crake, and of the kind Oryx. This pains Snowman – who used to be named Jimmy – because he never got to be a god, despite relaying the wishes of Oryx and Crake to these people for whom he feels responsible, and because all the people like Snowman have been wiped out. How and why, the reader discovers in a delightfully paced, teasing drip of information. Man’s ingenuity remains in their place; Wolvogs, Pigoons, Rakunks. Half-empty bottles of scotch.

The book’s edge over most in the genre is the way the reader is left wondering just how far into our future any of these leaps of writerly imagination actually are. Wry and cynical, the book may be, but it’s unnervingly close to plausible, in terms of societal evolution, and that makes it all the more enjoyable a read.

Atwood writes fabulous prose; so fabulous that it’s hard to mind that she’s just been kicking humanity in the teeth for 400+ pages.
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LibraryThing member streamsong
In this version of the future, people are objectified and valued on the basis of making money for someone else. The most highly valued are the science and math types who, by researching amazing new products, can earn big money for the corporations that rule the world. A second type, the word
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people, have a much lesser value as their use to corporations is only in designing advertising campaigns.

Those valued by the corporations live in heavily guarded walled compounds. Everyone else lives in pleeblands which have disintegrated into mass chaos.

One of the ultra science geniuses, Crake, decided humankind was beyond redemption and needed to start over. Since genetic engineering had been perfected and Crake was highly prized by the corporation, he had the wherewithal to genetically engineer a new type of human. These new humans were designed without many of the pesky human traits that Crake felt contributed to humanity's downfall. Said traits include, among others, romantic love, belief in God, agression and competiveness. He was also able to design a fast acting virus to rid the planet of the other sort of human.

The novel opens with these new humans, the Crakers, being watched over by Snowman, a human survivor word person who was Crake's best friend when they were adolescents.

We're given a lady or the tiger type ending and the question--are humans beyond redemption?
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LibraryThing member teresakayep
This was my second reading of Oryx and Crake, a dystopian novel set at some undisclosed point in the future, probably later this century. Snowman, previously known as Jimmy, is, as far as he knows, the last human left on the planet. On first read, I was absorbed in understanding what was going on
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and piecing together the narrative. How did these things happen? Is Snowman alone on the planet? Who are Oryx and Crake? In that reading, the book was primarily a polemic on the dangers of science run amok. There are also some musings on art and the impossibility of silencing the spirit. It worked, and I enjoyed it, but as a dystopia, it’s not especially original.

However, this time I was struck with how Atwood seems to be exploring how we construct reality. The scientific aspects of the story involve genetic engineering. The characters are trying to build life that isn’t susceptible to disease, discomfort, or other frailties. But the scientists aren’t alone in that. Before the disaster, Snowman/Jimmy worked in communications, in spin-doctoring. When he talks to the Crakers, he tells them a version of the truth that he thinks they can understand and that will not overly distress them. But the rabbit hole goes deeper. In fact, on this second encounter with the story, I’m convinced that a lot of what is presented as truth in Snowman’s flashbacks is in fact a massaging of the truth, designed to fit Snowman’s fantasies. But where does Snowman’s fantasy end and the truth begin?

See my complete review at my blog.
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LibraryThing member majkia
Wow. Sadly, all too easily seen as actually happening. I do like that about her work. She imagines a dystopian world that you can believe could happen. You hope to hell it won't, but if things go badly, oh yeah.

I listened to the Audio version of this which worked very well since the book is written
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in first person. The disjointed telling of a story, some of it current time, some of it dreams, some of it memories that come to Snowman as the book progresses is a very effective method and keeps you guessing about what has happened.

Although you can see the outlines of just how Snowman ended up in his tree quite early on, the details are the arresting feature and oddly compelling. It’s like watching a train wreck or an automobile accident. You want to look away but can’t quite do it.

Certainly a cautionary tale, and one that is all too possible.
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LibraryThing member labfs39
Hearing the buzz about the book on some of the threads, I requested it from the library for my vacation. I'm glad I didn't buy it. I didn't actively dislike the book, although I found the ending very frustrating, rather I was left completely indifferent.

Jimmy is a bright kid from a slightly
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dysfunctional family who becomes friends with the new kid in school, a cool geek everyone calls Crake. The story of Jimmy's childhood and early adulthood and relationship with Crake are told in flashbacks, as the real-time Jimmy struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The author manages the transitions back and forth in time deftly, and the two threads come together at the end with a similar dilemma in each. Oryx, the other title character, is a child prostitute and porn star with whom both boys fall in love, with predictable results.

The strident message of the book concerns the moral quandary facing genetic scientists when the world has devolved to a violent and degenerate society whose members struggle to survive on the earth's depleted resources. The warning of "this could happen to you" is felt throughout. Both are typical themes of apocalyptic novels, and I was rather disappointed that I didn't find some special twist or flash of originality, which I expected from an Atwood novel. When the novel ends, or rather, doesn't end, I was left feeling like "so, what? Did I miss something?"
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LibraryThing member cmcvittie
In a future all too plausible, thanks to Atwood's research, Snowman (aka Jimmy) is the guardian and teacher of the Crakers. Atwood's love of words and ability to wind a narrative back and forth from flashbacks to Jimmy's life to the bleak life he leads with the Crakers moves inexorably towards an
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ending that can't be good. Atwood's story-telling powers are at full-strength and even though it seems like there can't be a sequel, I wonder at what will happen in this modern setting where genetically spliced animals and people roam the post Crake-created plague world. Definitely a powerful read for students in grades 10 and up.
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LibraryThing member ScribbleKey
I fell in love with this book from page 1. Thankfully, the rest of it did not disappoint. A wonder of a book. Easy 5 stars.
LibraryThing member sturlington
The premise of this novel, and the details of the future world it depicts, are so outlandish that you must either accept them immediately or stop reading. I accepted them. I was instantly subsumed in the fascinating, disturbing world that Atwood has created.

The novel opens in a post-apocalyptic
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shore-side wilderness where the only survivor (presumably), Snowman, is barely surviving. He sleeps in a tree and spends his days in a hallucinatory stupor. The only breaks in the monotony are visits from children who turn out to be genetically engineered post-humans, with glowing green eyes and the ability to eat leaves.

Gradually, Snowman — whose pre-apocalypse name is Jimmy — reveals the events leading up to the disaster as he remembers them. He grew up in a corporate compound separated by walls and guards from the “pleeblands,” where the poor lived in crowded, polluted slums. His father worked for a powerful company conducting research in genetic engineering to come up with new products designed to relieve food shortages, prolong life and preserve beauty, resulting in such bizarre creations as the pigoon and the rakunk. As a teenager, Snowman befriends a brilliant but anti-social young man who calls himself Crake, whose genius enables him to attend a prestigious and luxurious university and then get a high-profile job conducting top-secret eugenics research. Crake brings his old friend into the compound where he works, and there Snowman learns that Crake has engineered a new race of people who don’t have many of the “problems” we do.

Also there is Oryx, the beautiful, victimized woman who both men love. Yes, this is a grand story about the downfall of the human race, but it is also the oldest story of all: a love triangle.

This book kept me fascinated and disturbed until the very end. There were so many outlandish details, but at the heart it explores some fundamental issues: the unchecked power of people wielding science, without regard for consequences; the calamitous effects of environmental abuse; the potential within us to destroy ourselves; the follies of playing god. The only criticism I have is that the ending is a bit unsatisfying. It just leaves us hanging. But overall, Atwood is a terrific writer exploring the science fiction themes of apocalypse and dystopia, and Oryx and Crake is a terrific contribution to this genre.
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LibraryThing member Kayla-Marie
This book was very frustrating to read. The constant switch between past and present narration was confusing. The present narration left me with so many questions, many of which were not answered until near the end of the book (but at least they were all answered-praise for Atwood for tying up all
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her loose ends). Oryx's character frustrated me to the very end, though. Her unusual way of thinking about her life never gelled with me. I wanted to slap her so many times and tell her to snap out of it (as I'm sure Jimmy wanted to do as well).

Oryx and Crake was definitely an interesting read, but I'm not sure I can handle the sequel. Who knows, though? I might get to it some day.
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LibraryThing member amandacb
I know most were lukewarm about this book, but I got really into it. It started me on a dystopia, sci-fi kick on which I am still going. Atwood's ideas as presented in this novel are just incredibly intriguing to me. I also appreciated her sequel to this novel, [The Year of the Flood].
LibraryThing member StephLaymon
This is my first tryst with a Margaret Atwood book and I was quite taken by her creative genius. The story began in a way that is intentionally confusing, and then unfolded in the most interesting way, slowly uncovering the most fascinating facts that led the world to be in the state that the
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reader finds things in the opening chapter.

Not only is the world building nicely done, but I was completely invested in the outcome for the sake of the characters. The main character is not very likable, but by books end I was more of a fan of his. Little nods to real world history, conspiracy theories, and government interference make this all that much more interesting.

Oryx and Crake takes place in a dystopia world that seems largely unrealistic at first glance, but Atwood has a way of making all of the oddities all seem quite imaginable.

There is a huge, and I mean the hugest of cliffhangers in the end, which I am never ver fond of, but I can forgive it for the most part because I feel like I did get the answers to the questions that the book was intended to deliver, thus getting a complete story. The cliffhanger was one of those deals that just insures that the reader will come back for more, and I will.
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
Very well-written, thought-provoking, and disturbing. Atwood skillfully jumps back and forth between a post-apocalyptic dystopia, and the story of how the dystopia came to be. This world is frighteningly close to what ours could soon be: climate change has had catastrophic effects on ecology and
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society, genetic engineering (particularly of food) runs rampant, a wealthy scientific elite hide themselves from the poor rabble of the world, and it is perilously easy for a disease to wipe out humanity. Atwood not only describes this world in vivid language, she also skillfully and subtly explores its implications.

[semi-spoiler alert!]
My only complaint about the book is its ending, or lack thereof. The book just sortof stopped, right before what could have been a climactic moment. I suppose Atwood was aiming for an unfulfilled feeling: the dystopia is a new world, so in a way it is appropriate for the book to feel unfinished. But after such a long and emotionally-charged journey, I was really hoping for something bigger and more meaningful in the ending.

I listened to the audiobook, and thought it was very well-read.
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LibraryThing member RachelPenso
Wow. This book was awesome. Wonderfully descriptive, stunningly creative, not to mention my (current) favorite genre: post apocalyptic. The main character is Snowman, who is the last one of his kind. Part of the book is spent looking back on Snowman's earlier life, which takes place in the not too
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distant future when he is still known as Jimmy. So as not to give too much away, I will simply say it is about genetic engineering and leave it at that. Also, I will say that parts of this book seemed frighteningly plausible.
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LibraryThing member Maggie_Rum
A futuristic story of two young boys, who grow up during a drastic environmental disaster. One grows up to become The Snowman, one of the few humans left wandering around, while the other becomes the mastermind of a new race. A believable, readable fantasy.
LibraryThing member porch_reader
Although this didn't sound like "my kind of book" based on the blurb on the back, I was immediately drawn in by Atwood's storytelling ability. It is clear from the beginning that something has gone terribly wrong. Snowman is alone in a post-apocalyptic world, and through flashbacks, we gradually
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learn about the world in which Snowman grew up and the steps that led to the current state of the world. It is the subtle differences between our world and the world in which Snowman grew up that are perhaps the most disturbing. Although the conditions in which we first meet Snowman seem unlikely and even far-fetched, Atwood shows how a short slippery slope could land mankind in such a place. There is not a single misstep in this tightly plotted book. What a pleasure to discover such a skilled writer who has written so many other books that I look forward to discovering.
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LibraryThing member Spiceca
Oh what a strange and terrifying read. It deserves all the accolades and definitely isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. If you are an Atwood fan or the strange dystopian fan then give it ago. Just don't expect it to follow any of the normal rules.
LibraryThing member GretchenLynn
Oryx and Crake is the first in a science fiction trilogy by Margaret Atwood about a future, almost post-apocalyptic version of the world. The story is told from the point of view of the main character, Jimmy, but the reader gets the story in a mix of descriptions of the present and memories from
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the past. In this way, the reader is left to piece together the history of a world where genetic engineering has run wild and social inequality is at an extreme. Jimmy grows up in the middle of it, and through his story of a miserable childhood, the best friend who is always there for him, and the love of his young life, he manages to show the reader why the apocalypse came about and how, against all odds, he managed to survive. It is wonderfully written, and leaves the reader wanting to know more about what will happen to Jimmy and the world he now lives in...and at the same time looking at some of the environmental and social issues in the world today and wondering if this is a possible cautionary tale about where we might be headed.
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LibraryThing member scofer
Atwood is one of my favorite authors and did not disappoint with this one. The book opens in a world where the narrator may be the only human left on earth and the story jumps around between times leading up to and after the event that appears to have destroyed the remainder of humanity. This one
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took me a bit of time to get into but, once it got going, I was hooked.
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LibraryThing member bibleblaster
Quite possibly one of the best speculative fiction novels I've ever read (and I love to read speculative fiction). I believe it is the first Margaret Atwood novel I've read. Don't know what exactly I was expecting, but this book blew me away. I found it thoughtful, surprising, intelligent,
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gripping. I look forward to the sequel, The Year of the Flood.
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LibraryThing member CaitlinAC
I read this book for a posthuman course at university. While I think the writing is very intricate and complex, this book just wasn't my cup of tea.

Atwood is a good writer, to be sure. Very imaginative and bold. Part of what makes this story so effective is that some of the technologies don't seem
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too futuristic. We already try to alter our looks with technology, we already have scientists creating food in labs, etc. So the future Atwood proposes doesn't seem too unlikely which is really unsettling.

I know this is the first in a series, so that's why the ending was so open. However, I didn't like that it just cut off since there was so much build-up to Jimmy "Snowman" finding other humans.

As I said, the writing is very smart and well-done, but the pacing is slow and overall this book was just not something I enjoyed reading.
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LibraryThing member Bookmarque
I meant to read this when it first came out, but I am really hit or miss with Atwood, so I gave it a miss. But the lure of another post-apocalyptic novel was great and I’m very glad to have read it. I can barely write about it though since it has so many layers and aspects. The story is told
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through flashbacks and while many references are completely unknown at first, I was drawn in completely and wanted to know everything. From the very beginning I was curious and felt as if I were in the story, not merely observing it.

At first it was very hard to follow the invented vocabulary – pigoons and racunks, pleeblands and BlyssPluss. But eventually things straightened themselves out. Immediately we understand that the Crakers are physically different from Snowman and have no perception, memory or understanding of the world before. One scene shows Snowman trying in vain to explain what toast is to a bunch of people who have no conception of electricity, breakfast, bread, wheat or kitchens.

That difference is staggeirng - a world with toast and a world without. Fascinating and hard to imagine. Great speculative fiction. Not science fiction per se as the science is admittedly weak. But excellent characters and perspectives.
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